


Day 7: Favourite Flowers

by aoiichii



Series: Deduetober 2019 [7]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Deduetober 2019, Nonbinary My Unit | Byleth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 05:50:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21010772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aoiichii/pseuds/aoiichii
Summary: Three glimpses at a flower patch





	Day 7: Favourite Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> This one took waaay too long to finish haha, it also blew my original goal of trying to stay around 300 - 500 words away fghfdjnksl  
Well, I hope you enjoy regardless!

Honestly speaking, Dedue's decision had long been made before this day. It had been set in stone the moment Dimitri had stepped in front of him that nightmare of a day all those years ago. He had only been delayed by not knowing where exactly His Highness was being kept.

Now that the last bit of information he needed had been delivered by a scout, he had no reason to linger any longer. 

And yet he found himself in the greenhouse just an hour or so before his departure. It wasn't time yet for the reunion that his classmates had agreed upon, that was still years away, but Dedue had wandered back to the grounds regardless. The bandits that had begun setting up a temporary stay in the ruins had been swiftly and easily taken care of, he and the battalion with him more than capable of cleaning out the intruders. 

As he quietly gazed over the plants that had survived the siege and the time since then, Dedue found his thoughts straying to another person he wished to see again. A wish he had kept sequestered away in his heart, though no one would have found fault with it. His classmates had grieved the loss of their professor as much as he had after all.

But they weren't fools that would let their grief consume them in a time of war. 

Their professor had taught them better than that. 

They had a strong belief in them, that was the reason they had chosen their class after all. Whatever the reason for their absence now, that belief had most definitely not wavered.

Reaching up, Dedue retrieved the small pouch of flower seeds he had tucked into his scarf. Glancing around to find a spot, he kneeled by an empty patch of dirt. While he would have normally liked to have planted these properly, this was the best he could do before he left on his rescue mission - one he was not likely to return from. He could almost hear the reprimanding words he would receive for giving up his life like this. 

Though, perhaps he was not giving the memory of them due honour. 

If he explained himself properly, instead of his usual words of fealty and of how his life had been forfeit to Dimitri already… if Dedue could give voice to how important it was that Dimitri survived, that he would try his best to get them both out alive if it were even possible. Perhaps he might have earned himself an understanding look and - well no. If they were here and had heard his words, Dedue did not doubt that they would not have let him go without them.

After scattering the seeds over the small plot and sweeping dirt over top of them, Dedue bowed his head, offering up a prayer to the Goddess - and then another to the Gods of his own people. To the God of War, to the God of Protection. 

Whatever happened on this raid, as long as Dimitri survived and escaped by the end of the mission - that would be enough. For Dimitri to have the chance to turn the tides of this war… Dedue would make sure such a chance could exist. 

These flowers were a selfish request of his, a message to the one that had spent so much time with him among the plants here. The one no one could truly believe was gone, not after everything that had already happened. 

Footsteps approached and Dedue straightened up, brushing the dirt from his hands. It was time to head out.

* * *

"...Were these always here?"

Dedue lowered his watering can, looking across the way to where the professor was crouched, gently sifting their fingers through a carpet of little blue and purple flowers. Dedue didn't answer the question asked, it appeared to have been rhetorical what with how they busied themselves with sorting through the tiny blooms almost immediately. 

In the resulting chaos and passage of time Dedue had, ironically, almost forgotten about these flowers. Planted four years ago now… they had certainly thrived on their own, spreading throughout the rest of the dirt in the section he’d dropped their seeds in. Any spot that didn’t have another flower or plant growing out of it was covered with them..

Since resuming his duties with caring for the plants in the greenhouse, he hadn’t known what to do with the blooms. He hadn’t the heart to remove them all, not when they had originally been planted for another.

He hadn’t realized that the professor hadn’t seen them yet. With how busy they’d been, catching up on five years of lost time, planning strategy, and even doing their best to save Dimitri in Dedue’s own absence… perhaps Dedue should have expected that they wouldn’t have had as much time as they’d once had to just while it away among the greenery and flora.

“...Dedue?”

Blinking, Dedue looked up from his contemplation of the watering can he held, having been staring at it as his thoughts wandered.

“Yes? Was there something you needed?”

The professor had gotten up from the flowers, one hand curled into a loose fist that they held at chest level. As they approached him, their free hand came up and they asked to see his hand. Furrowing his brow, Dedue shifted the watering can to his left hand and held out his right.

Bending their head over his hand, Dedue could feel their fingers gently run over the back of his hand before they turned his hand over and placed something in his palm. He wasn’t allowed to see what it was though as they tugged his fingers to uncurl them. There was a slight tickle around his pinky and the sensation of something being wrapped around it, before the professor lifted their head and stepped back. He was immediately distracted from his hand by the smile that played on the professor’s lips, small but sweet.

It was the realization that the professor was staring back at him, expectant, that made Dedue tear his eyes from their lips and drop his gaze to his hand. They had been searching for longer stemmed flowers it seemed, as they had wrapped one stem around his pinky, tying it off with the flower sitting atop it, like a ring.

He could feel the heat that darkened his complexion.

“P-professor?”

Dedue was sure the expression he was seeing now was the closest the professor had ever come to pouting.

“...do you not like it? Flowers suit you, so I thought this would suit you too.”

Those words did nothing to help Dedue in his attempts to get the colour to leave his cheeks.

* * *

While they looked resplendent in the robes and accoutrements of Archbishop, Dedue found that his betrothed looked their best in the casual clothes that they chose for themself - or even in their borrowed clothes when they decided to steal pieces from Dedue’s wardrobe. He himself was still getting used to happening upon them wearing his things.

Today he found them wrapped in his scarf over a loose fitting tunic and comfortable pants, heading towards the greenhouse. Their travel bags had been packed the night before and Seteth had been informed of the Archbishop’s travel plans for the next two months. Dedue would have liked more time to show them around his homeland, but he knew that even the two months they had “requested” from Seteth were already pushing how long they could be away from their position.

Dimitri would be able to handle most things with his advisors and loyal friends at his side, plus Seteth, Flayn, and Mercedes were more than capable of keeping things at the monastery going smoothly - but the Archbishop’s presence would sorely be missed while the unified country was still getting back on its feet.

As much as his beloved reassured him that it would be alright for him to be more selfish, in this situation Dedue would hold his tongue. Though even with that thought, he was already sure that they knew what he was thinking - their eyes had an all too knowing gleam in them when they looked at him sometimes.

He stopped in the doorway to the greenhouse, watching as the Archbishop headed over to the still thriving patch of little flowers. After it had been properly rebuilt, the greenhouse’s planters had been weeded out and many of the small blooms had been removed, a small patch of them had remained by Dedue’s explicit request while he had still been in Dimitri’s service.

“Forget-me-nots…” Dedue spoke up, naming the flowers as he approached them from behind. They had taken a seat along the edge of the planter and glanced up at him as he neared. Their hair fell freely about their face without the Archbishop’s headdress adorning their head and Dedue allowed himself to reach forward and to brush it back. Instead of taking his hand back, he stepped closer and urged them to face forward again with a tap on their shoulder. He quietly began braiding their hair back, little braids he twisted the ends of before joining together. He didn’t have something to tie them with but was pleased when they held a bit of ribbon over their shoulder for him to take.

Once he had finished the series of braids, he sat himself down beside them and reached into the patch of forget-me-nots, gently picking a couple.

“I planted them a year after you fell,” Dedue admitted as he began to place the flowers he picked into their hair.

“Before I went to Dimitri and traded places with him. I came here to leave you these flowers.”

“...at that time…? How were you even sure -”

“I did not believe you dead. None of us knew where you had gone, but I could not believe you dead.”

That was… mostly true. His mind had thought about it, but his heart had not accepted it. His heart won out in the end, combined with a gut feeling, and so he had chose to quietly believe.

They turned as he spoke, catching his hands where they hovered in the air after he’d placed the last flower he’d picked. A beautiful smile lifted their lips and Dedue returned it with a smaller one of his own.

Apologies had been abundant when they had returned he had heard. His old classmates had told him how their old professor had looked, stricken about their lost time and apologizing for not being there for them.

When he himself had returned to the monastery, the professor had pulled him into an embrace that had taken him by surprise. It had truly been an overwhelming sort of reunion.

Leaning down, Dedue pressed a warm kiss to their lips.

“I adore you.”

Another kiss, accompanied by their breathless giggles.

“I love you, Byleth.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on twitter (@runawithagun) to chat or scream with :D


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